Chapter 33: The First Step in Los Angeles

The plump waitress came over, refilled Henry's coffee pot, and asked, "Looking for something?"

"I need to find a cheap motel first, otherwise I'll be sleeping in a park tonight."

From the Yellow Pages page Henry was flipping through, the plump waitress turned another page, pointed at one listing, and said, "Try this one. It's not bad."

"Oh." It was a motel in northern Los Angeles, near Hollywood. Apparently the plump waitress had given Henry's needs full consideration before making this recommendation.

Otherwise, if she were skimming, she should have recommended a motel near the restaurant—that would give her an excuse to drop by and claim a commission. Anywhere too far away, and it would be hard to show up at the door claiming the guest was her referral.

Henry copied down the brief information from the Yellow Pages and said, "Thanks." At the same time, he fished around in his pockets—here, there—scraping together enough for the meal, and left a generous tip.

Seeing the tip amount finally coaxed a grin out of the plump waitress.

Looks like no amount of sweet talk can ever beat cold, hard cash.

Putting the Yellow Pages back, taking the map, the newspaper, and his own things, Henry returned to the car and set off toward his destination.

If he planned to make it in Los Angeles, renting a place was a must; buying one was probably still beyond what he could afford to his satisfaction.

Although he himself was unafraid of bullets, having petty thieves show up at his door every couple of days would be annoying even if it wasn't dangerous. So public safety still had to be taken into account.

But renting a place takes time, and he couldn't spend all that time roughing it in the car. Finding a motel was the best option.

Henry had no intention of searching on his own; he drove straight to the motel the plump waitress had recommended.

He cruised around the neighborhood briefly. No strange men or women loitering on the main street.

And by "strange men and women," he usually meant men with tattoos or shabby clothes, and women dressed to the nines with barely anything on. Of course, in the dead of winter, these women might just be wearing miniskirts paired with some mystery-fur coat.

These people are either selling powder or selling themselves. But they're not everywhere—they only show up on streets with poor public safety.

Near the motel the plump waitress recommended, he didn't see anyone like that in the surrounding blocks. That counts as some proof of decent public safety.

Parking the car in the motel's lot, Henry gathered his things—including the most important one, the backpack holding several hundred thousand in cash—and walked up to the front desk.

At first glance, the motel's front desk seemed unattended, but in fact the clerk was sitting behind it, hidden by the tall counter. The TV behind the counter was playing a show, and the lady who was supposed to be on duty was crunching chips and sipping cola, happily watching a soap opera.

Henry tapped the service bell twice, though he had already spotted the lady with her legs crossed. And she seemed to have spotted him too, out of the corner of her eye—but she didn't turn her head or shift her gaze, fully absorbed in the TV.

Hearing the bell, the lady dropped the act and asked, "What is it?"

"How much for one person, one night?"

"Twenty bucks." The lady said without looking up.

Henry fished a crumpled hundred-dollar bill from his chest pocket, slapped it on the counter, and said, "That's five five nights. The key."

The lady moved like she'd rehearsed it—posture unchanged, right hand took the key off the wall hook, left hand took the bill and set it on the counter. Then she pushed the registration book over and said, "Sign your name." And casually palmed the bill.

It was only when she took the bill that her precious eyes shifted once, to confirm the denomination.

But she didn't even glance at whether the bill was real or counterfeit. One can only say that Americans of this era have an extraordinarily strong sense of confidence. They don't take seriously the fact that US currency is the most counterfeited in the world.

Anyway, given the dollar's position in the world economy, no matter how much they print, the whole world picks up the tab—not just the US. So what is there to be afraid of?

And there are so many shady underground activities within the US—who would any gang dare to call the police after receiving counterfeit bills? Even if they knew it was fake, as long as it wasn't ridiculously fake, they'd just keep using it as real.

As long as you don't deposit it in a bank, and don't brazenly use it to pay federal agencies—especially the IRS. Anyone who dares to pay taxes with counterfeit money is basically asking for it.

As for the motel's guest registration book, it was handwritten. The wild, flamboyant scrawl meant that even Henry, with his super-brain, could only make out a handful of names.

Looking at the signatures up there, they were practically on par with a doctor's prescription.

He had intended to obediently write his name, but on a whim, Henry signed the illustrious "Clark Kent" in a hurried scrawl.

Anyway, the lady wasn't checking IDs. Leaving his real, currently-in-use name felt a bit odd.

It was like before his transmigration—no matter what website he was registering on, as long as it wasn't anything important, he'd just sign up with a random fake-identity email. That was practically an instinct for protecting personal info online.

Seeing that the lady really didn't check, Henry took the room key with a slightly deflated feeling. In his heart, his concern about the neighborhood's public safety ticked up just a notch.

Henry asked again, "Do you have a Yellow Pages?"

"There's one next to the phone in the room. Hahaha."

That, at least, was a direct answer—not the cold shoulder. Though that laugh was because she'd caught a funny moment in the soap opera. It had nothing to do with Henry.

Well, twenty bucks a night is pretty darn cheap. Can't ask for more.

Stepping into the motel room, it was just as simple as the ones he'd seen in movies or TV dramas—arguably even a bit shabby. But in terms of cleanliness, nothing to complain about; everything that needed cleaning or replacing had been properly done.

At the very least, the overpowering smell of detergent on the sheets nearly knocked Henry out, super sense of smell and all.

How many germs were on the sheets was hard to say, but the amount of detergent was absolutely sincere—almost on par with dry cleaning that skipped the water and went straight to detergent.

The Yellow Pages Henry had specifically asked for was tucked under the telephone.

He glanced at the cover. It was an old phone book, not this year's.

But what Henry was looking for wouldn't be some brand-new company that just opened this year. So whether the Yellow Pages were the latest didn't really matter.

Hanging his coat on the rack by the door, tossing his backpack aside, Henry flopped onto the bed, whose springs were still mostly intact.

At that moment, the real feeling of having arrived in Los Angeles suddenly welled up inside him. Because the mattress he was lying on was no longer the bar sofa in Alaska, nor Old John's lumpy spring bed, nor the car seat.

He wouldn't say the future looked bleak, but being in a foreign country, charging toward an unknown destiny—to claim he wasn't nervous would definitely be a lie.

A Kryptonian's abilities only guaranteed he wouldn't die—not that he'd succeed.

New book seeks follows, bookmarks, recommendations—thanks~~

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(End of chapter)